Our Full Report From the 2019 Watertown Mile Long Yard Sale

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And, just like that – the 2019 Watertown mile long yard sale has come and gone.

I’ve always called it the quintessential rite of passage from winter into spring. There’s no telling what you’ll find among the items for sale, but that’s not what it’s about. It’s about the journey. It’s about the stories that you and your loved ones will share forever by attending this yard sale.

Like the box of porn we found two years ago. I know that’s going to be the first thing loyal SoBros readers will ask about, so I’d like to address that first and foremost – we did NOT find the box of porn. Either someone finally gave in and bought it, or Watertown finally cracked down on the man selling it.

Nonetheless, Saturday was even more special than it has been in the past because, for the first time in my life, I worked a booth at the yard sale. That’s right – the SoBros Network team banded together, rounded up all of our household items, the entire inventory from SoBros Shop dot com, even created some original art, and set up a SoBros booth at the yard sale.

March 30, 2019

The SoBros that we knew were making the journey met at The Goat in Mount Juliet on Wednesday and hashed out all of the logistics. I was to pick up “Nature Boy” Brandon Vick at 5:30AM in Gladeville. Cadbury was bringing a van full of inventory from the far side of Mount Juliet. Mose and Mrs. Mose were heading out from Cookeville, and we all agreed to convene in H20 Town at 6AM.

That meant, coming from Hermitage, I had to get up at 4:30AM in order to shower, get my inventory in order, pick up Brandon, get his inventory in order, and hit the road on time. Yeah….early morning. But, I didn’t mind. The drive was pleasant.

When we arrived in Watertown, I grew a tad concerned. I’m used to seeing the side of the road teeming with life from the moment you exit I-40. Even as we approached the city limits, not a soul was outside. That’s when it hit me – “no shit, Stoney. It’s 6AM.”

We rolled on in to our spot under the pavilion off of South Central Avenue. The morning started off with a bang, when a lady approached Brandon and me to ask for help getting her trailer out of the mud. See, parking for vendors was limited to the grass adjacent to the pavilion. But, what wasn’t apparent was the giant ditch nearby.

Apparently, she either didn’t see it or didn’t realize how physics work. She drove her truck through it, and buried the hitch about five inches into the ground and dragged it for about five feet. It looked like a tremor was approaching.

Now, I don’t know the first thing about trailers, but I have a rudimentary understanding of physics. The thing was stuck in the mud, so if we simply applied pressure to the opposite end, it would pull it up out of the mud.

Brandon and I hopped in the back of the trailer and started jumping up and down, not so different from the way you’ve seen monkeys jumping up and down in cartoons. But, it worked! We got it out of the mud. So, I proceeded to push the trailer up out of the ditch. They lady was going to try and back the truck up, hook the trailer back to it, and then pull away to even land and safety. But, Brandon and I are virtually useless when it comes to that sort of thing.

Thankfully, Cadbury (along with a triumphant Poppa Bear who was able to report for duty) pulled up in the van at about the same time that Brandon and I were jumping up and down on the trailer like monkeys. Mose approached the pavilion about the same time. I believe the conversation went something like this:

Cadbury: why are those two dudes jumping up and down in that trailer?

Mose: Oh, that’s Brandon and Stoney. They’re helping some lady get her trailer out of the mud.

Cadbury: oh….oh wait….she’s counting on Stoney and Brandon?!?!?!

So, Cadbury and Poppa Bear came up and helped get the trailer hitched back to the truck, and the lady drove off to a more suitable parking spot. Later on, her mother would even come up to thank us. But, that’s just the SoBro Way, people. May not have a fuckin’ clue what we’re doing, but if you need help, you can damn sure bet we’ll do what we can!

Then, with that out of the way, it was time to get down to brass tacks. Let’s get this inventory out, boys and girl! By this point, it’s about 7:00AM. We have three tables, and a SHIT TON of inventory. Getting everything set up felt like playing a game of Tetris. Thankfully, as we’re setting up, a man approached me and asked if he could purchase my entire tub of wrestling action figures. We agreed on a price, and he took ’em….freeing up room for something else.

Later on, we found that tub at another booth, so I’m sure he just bought ’em to resell ’em, but that’s okay. I just wanted to get rid of the damn things. We had some real quality items, though, and by the time we got everything unpacked and settled, I felt like we actually had a pretty damn respectable booth set up. Not to mention, we had plenty of chairs to rest in should the need present itself.

By 8AM, we had made $52, but it felt like we had been there for an eternity. By 10AM, we had lost all concept of time altogether. But, at that point, we cracked $100 in sales. Considering I paid $113 for the booth, I was ready to call the day a success. I had no idea how that day would conclude.

My girlfriend and Brandon’s girlfriend showed up around that time, with a bag full of pop tarts, cashews, water bottles, and other assorted snacks. That was my breakfast and I was happy to have it. No coffee shops were open between Gladeville and Watertown at 5:30-6:00AM.

We had a shirt rack set up displaying some of the finest merchandise from the SoBros Shop. Our new 615 catfish design was a hit, drawing a lot of people towards our booth. Between Saturday and the Preds Watch Party from the week before, we’re down to an inventory of one shirt. So, uhhhhh – sorry if you’ve been looking for ’em at SoBros Shop dot com. We’re going to have to do a second run now. Anyway, the wind was our biggest enemy all day long. The shirt rack blew over twice. Thankfully, no one was hurt. But, we concluded that someone had to be holding the shirt rack down at all times.

The paintings got a lot of attention, but mostly just people laughing at them. I can’t tell you how many people asked us, “now, who is this?” I always replied, “oh, that’s our buddy RHog. Isn’t he handsome?” People loved the Gritty painting, but no one really bit on it.

Myself, Cadbury, Brandon, and Poppa Bear took shifts holding the shirt rack down, while Mose ran the damn DVD table like a master salesman. Poppa Bear made it his personal mission to sell this sweet basket we had priced at $5. Once we were nice and settled in, we were able to take turns walking around the yard sale and scoping out the festivities.

It wasn’t long before nature called, though. That was one of my biggest concerns. At one point, Brandon came back from the porta potties disgusted, saying “it looks like five different shits in that porta potty.” I’m with him, though – I mean, I get that when you gotta go, you gotta go. But, it’s pretty gross to just sit there and shit on top of shit. Anyway, Cadbury couldn’t smell anything, as we discovered later in the day. Not sure how I got on the disgusting piles of doo doo in the porta potty, but I’m just trying to be as thorough as possible as a journalist.

From then on, it was pretty well smooth sailing. We had a nice system, and we just kept selling and selling.

I dipped out to go see my comic book guy. He wasn’t there last year, so I was ecstatic to see him back. I picked up 25 comics – mostly the old run of Power Man and Iron Fist, but I mixed in a nice issue of Balder the Brave and some Shang Chi (since they’re introducing him into the MCU, figured those might be worth something in a bit).

I went to get a Polish sausage at one of the food trucks, and there was a couple trying to get their money back. Apparently, the first cheeseburger they bought was still frozen solid. They asked for another, and when they pulled the bun off, it had ice chips on it, too. I felt bad, but my sausage was in tip top shape. Maybe it was a bad sign that this place had just opened up. In fact, it’s kind of weird that my sausage was actually good. Maybe I was eating Friday night’s sausage?

When I returned, everyone’s spirits were high. My heart was full as I knew this was going to be one of those days in SoBros history that we’d talk about for the rest of our lives. A lady was perusing the movies when Cadbury said, “hey yeah – you should listen to him (pointing to Brandon)! He’s a credentialed film critic!” She was clearly impressed, but her husband said in disbelief, “really?” Brandon replied with “UH HUH,” in the same manner you mock someone for saying something stupid.

Later on, I overheard Brandon telling a lady that he believed some of the jewelry he was selling had belonged to Cleopatra. Wow – talk about a salesman! Poppa Bear was over there pushing that basket to anyone who would listen. At one point, I heard Mose really pitching that copy of Boat Trip on VHS that we had.

I did notice quite a few awkward teenagers that walked up to my box of comic books, looked at it for a few hard seconds, then looked up and walked away as if they were terrified I might actually talk to them. I thought I looked pretty friendly with my multi-colored fanny pack and smile. But, I don’t really understand teenagers.

Mose and I perked up when we saw a little girl grab the Brett Ison ‘Street Justice’ painting he had created just a couple weeks ago. She ran and showed her mom, and we looked at each other like, “holy shit – are we about to sell this blood-spattered painting to a six year old girl?” But, her mom was having none of that.

We’re getting close to lunch time, so Poppa Bear and I decided to partake in some egg rolls and fried rice. I polished it off with a maple bacon cupcake (no clue how I did NOT shit my pants on Saturday). Then, the train rolled in and it was like a non-stop wave of people coming and going. We were slammed, but we were sellin’ shit like crazy, baby. We went from ~$100 to $200 like it was nothing and I was elated. We’d exceeded expectations by a mile.

Some kid was playing with the fart putty that Brandon brought. He made up his mind, told my girlfriend, “okay, I think I know what I want,” and pointed to the airplane made out of the Coca-Cola can. The booth erupted into applause. The poor kid was probably frightened, like, “what the hell are these weirdos doing?” And, Brandon gave him the fart putty for free.

Then, noted #OurGuy, Bromondo and his crew shows up. Another round of applause. Beers on me next time we’re in an environment where I’m not trying to sell original art, glassware, and toy ninja swords.

Not long after that, Poppa Bear actually sold the basket! $5 to a nice lady who said, “you know how much this thing would cost at Hobby Lobby?!?!?”

Aside from the wind, the weather held out. But, the wind was brutal. At one point, I looked up and saw about four or five of our DVDs flying through the air towards the bystanders under the pavilion. I felt completely helpless, holding the shirt rack down. Couldn’t help but laugh because of how ridiculous the whole thing looked. The Hogan painting flew up off the table and hit me in the face, and a pack of gag gift ‘bathroom citations’ that Brandon brought also fell victim to the wind. Cadbury brought a bloomin’ onion maker or masturbatory device (we never really pinpointed exactly what the item was) went sailing across the concrete a couple of times.

So, with the forecast still calling for rain, we managed to sell a couple umbrellas. One lady bought one, and afterwards came to check out our original paintings. She laughed in my face and said, “I admire your courage to put this out here for sale.”

Later on, she came back to exchange the umbrella for Cadbury’s set of miniature paintings.

Then, the train came back and carried everyone back home and the event started to slow down. We were up to $300 and that was wilder than I ever thought possible. I thought that was it – time to celebrate! But, the people just kept coming by! It was unbelievable – we started selling DVDs six or seven at a time. Someone bought Herbie Brooks’ copy of NCAA Football 2014 for $8, which none of us knew was actually going for like $70 at Gamestop. Cool – we’ll just skip over that part.

I had an issue of the Amazing Fantasy #1 reprint from the early 2000s that I bought at the yard sale four or five years ago thinking it was the actual Amazing Fantasy #1. Some kid picked it up and did the exact same thing that I did all that time ago – looked around, eyes darting from side to side, like, “holy shit, holy shit, holy shit.” But, where I just bought the thing without question, he actually asked me, “is..uhh…is this…is this…”

I cut him off – “nah, man – I did the same thing you just did.” He was flipping through my Spider-Man collection, but didn’t have enough dough to buy ’em all. He was trying to decide which two to buy when I told him I’d sell him all five for $10. I remember being that kid, so I wanted to give back. Hopefully, they’ll all become SoBros readers and spread the good word (or poison (depends on how you look at us)) to the next generation.

Then, the moment that made my day.

A high school aged kid walks up, he’s eyeing the painting of Hulk Hogan and his dog sitting in the hot tub. He wants it. I am shook. Here we are at the end of the day, and I actually have to negotiate about the damn Hogan hot tub painting. He asks, “how many of these are there?” I say, “that’s one of a kind, sir.” He asks, “is the artist here?” I say, “you’re lookin’ at him.” Finally, I hear the words I never thought I’d hear – “how much do you want for it?” I say, “I have an offer for $20 on the table, but if you’ll give me cash right now, it’s yours.”

That’s when I think the rest of the SoBros noticed. I start looking around and everyone’s looking back at me wide-eyed. Thankfully, we can all read each other’s minds. It was like, “holy shit – is this happening??!?!?”

The kid stares at the painting for a few more minutes. I’m starting to sweat it out, when he says, “this….this right here is a quality piece of art. I have to have it.”

He hands me $25 and relieves me of the painting. Take that Umbrella Lady and Boucher.

I couldn’t believe it. I mean, it was all for the content. It was all for comedy. And, I ended up getting $25 for that thing. I felt so victorious. “All I Do Is Win” was playing on repeat in my mind. All of the SoBros came up to me, passing around high fives. It may have been the biggest moment of my professional career.

With that final push, we ended up closing up shop having made $413. We packed up (after Cadbury went to buy a ceramic monkey and I went to buy a zebra clock), went to JB’s Pour House in Hermitage, drank some beers, feasted like kings and queens, and celebrated what was a HUGE win for the team.

Quick 2019 Watertown Yard Sale Moments Power Rankings

10. TIE: Brandon mocking that man who questioned his status as a legitimate film critic -AND- Brandon coming to me aghast and in horror at the shit in the porta potty.
9. Selling the Spider-Man comics.
8. Umbrella girl.
7. Selling the Coca-Cola airplane.
6. Bromondo showing up.
5. Poppa Bear selling the basket.
4. Jumping up and down on a trailer at 6AM.
3. The little girl asking her mom for the Street Justice painting.
2. The DVDs flying through the air.
1.Selling the Hogan painting.

I have to say I’m proud of this team for coming together and making this happen. This feels like one of those things you joke around with your friends about – “we should do a booth at the yard sale huhuhuhuhuhuhuhuhuh.” But, you have to be careful what you say around this bunch, because we’re completely liable to actually do it, and even though a lot of work went into it, we were able to GSD and make something positive for ourselves.

Felt like we raised some funds (Lake Season 2019 gonna be LIT) and did some good at the same time. Can’t wait for next year.

Stoney Keeley is the Editor in Chief of The SoBros Network. He is a strong supporter of Team GSD and #BeBetter. “Big Natural” covers the Tennessee Titans, Alabama Crimson Tide football, the WWE, and a whole wealth of nonsense. Follow on Twitter @StoneyKeeley

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